Vox Populi
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Charles Harper Webb: Pants
The dad, presenting You don’t know how good you have it
to his smirking teen, must be sure his belt is tight.
The wife, demanding that her husband stop playing
Call of Duty and call the plumber, must be certain
that her waistband holds. The prisoner facing the judge
should grip his trousers with one hand, just to be safe.
Professor, as you turn to write your name on the green board—
Lover, telling your once-beloved, “I’m leaving you”—
Doctor, pronouncing, “I have some bad news”—beware.
The President addressing the U.N.; the dowager
walking her cockapoo; the stacked librarian; the ardent
browser; the priest at his pulpit; the victim, hands
raised; the gun-pointing culprit—be warned, please.
Tempest Storm understood that what excites when eased off
slowly, creates horse-laughs, falling down.
Hitler rousing his hordes; LeBron, about to sink the team
on which you’ve bet the farm; all poets preening
at all podiums—let gravity have its way with them.
Beethoven, though, stone-deaf conducting his Ninth—
Lou Gehrig, calling himself the luckiest man on earth—
my mother, the aged wife, steadied by my sister
as she speaks my father’s elegy—heaven defend.
~~~~
Poem copyright 2025 Charles Harper Webb
A former professional rock singer/guitarist and licensed psychotherapist, Charles Harper Webb is Professor of English at California State University, Long Beach. His collections of poetry include Sidebend World (Pitt, 2018).
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Wonderful! Inventive, funny, and– I don’t know– somehow uncannily accurate. Bravo.
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‘Uncannily accurate” is a good description of Charles’s poetry. Thanks, Syd.
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A poem to save.
And following Sean Sexton’s anecdote, my own uplifting story. Way back in the day my aunt and uncle tried to keep up with modern things, so they bought an 8mm home movie camera, and a self-propelled lawnmower, the kind you stood behind to guide. Then, they decided to film their five year old miming mowing a lawn, pretending to strain and push. As soon as the mower started, as did the filming, he grabbed the mower bar, and his pants fell down. He pulled them up, raced to catch up with the runaway mower, and endlessly repeated the unintentional pants-drop till either the film stopped, the mower crashed, or his pleading and tears ended the affair. Thanks for re-starting this old dropped-trow memory.
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A wonderful anecdote, Jim. Thank you.
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Oh how I love this poem, its pace, its slow undress into clothing our understanding. If Charles needed an extra anecdote to round out the cause of this poem (it already seems to entail everything) I’d contribute the story of my father on a recent diet, rushing home for a fire extinguisher to help put out the flames of a car on fire by the side of the road. As he hurried up holding the goods and began his work, his pants fell straight to his knees. “What did you do?” we asked mid-tale. “Well—I pulled up my pants and put out the fire.
Never forget—A man can strip to the waist in two directions…
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Hahhahhhaahhaa
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So very funny Jim! A perpetual motion event fueled by the industrial revolution and human vanity!
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